London to John O 1 Groat's. 403 



in every way. They are truly a stalwart race of men, 

 broad-chested, of intelligent physiognomy, with Scan- 

 dinavian features fully developed. A half dozen of 

 them followed a horse-cart containing their nets all 

 done up in a round ball, like a bladder of snuff, with 

 the number of their boat marked upon it. 



At about four p.m., I came in sight of the steeples 

 of Wick, a brave, little city by the Norse Sea, which 

 may not only be called the Wick but the Candle of 

 Northern Scotland; lighting, like a polar star, this 

 hyperborean shoreland of the British isle. I never 

 entered a town with livelier pleasure. It is virtually 

 the last and farthest on the mainland in this direction. 

 Its history is full of interest. Its great business is full 

 of vigor, daring and danger. Here is the great land- 

 home of the Vikings of the nineteenth century ; the 

 indomitable men who walk the roaring and crested 

 billows of this Northern Ocean in their black, tough 

 sea-boats and bring ashore the hard-earned spoils of 

 the deep. This is the great metropolis of Fishdom. 

 Eric the Red, nor any other pre-Columbus navigator 

 of the North American Seas, ever mustered braver 

 crews than these sea-boats carry to their morning beats. 

 Ten thousand of as hardy men as ever wrestled with 

 the waves, and threw them too, are out upon that 

 wide water-wold before the sun looks on it half of 

 2 n 2 



